From Ram to IT

From being a political party that shot into national prominence through the
promise of building a temple less than just 20 years back, the Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) has come a long way. Or at least, it tries to project that. What is
significant is that it believes the best way to project that change is by
projecting an IT savvy image of its prime ministerial candidate. This is partly
a reflection of how India has changed in these twenty yearsfrom a nation of
problems to a nation of solutions, the transformation owing significantly to the
role played by its homegrown global IT industryand partly the result of BJPs
search for a tangible differentiation for itself, two of its earlier cards,
Hindutva and clean government, no longer working out. In the days of coalition
politics, it knows it has to come to power by collaborating with other political
parties, few of which buy its Hindutva agenda. And unlike in 1989, this time BJP
is in power in many states and has been in the power in the center, and the
voters do not buy the logic that it is cleaner than any other partyat least not
to the extent that it can make them vote for it with that hope.

IT comes as a nice tangible differentiation. And BJP has tried to play on it
by not just using Internet as a medium to market its message, it wants to send a
signal that it is a political party with a difference (again) that can make the
development happen by using IT effectively.

The IT Vision Document released by the party is the most significant step in
that direction. Released with a lot of fanfare in the presence of almost all its
senior leadersthe prime ministerial candidate LK Advani, party president
Rajnath Singh, senior leaders Arun Shourie, Jaswant Singh, Sushma Swaraj, Arun
Jaitley, and Ravi Shankar Prasadthe IT vision document is the first time that
any major political party has made a statement of achieving development goals
through IT. What is significant is that the vision document is not a collection
of big promises, nor is it a 20,000 feet view on IT. It is almost a blueprint
with the people behind it ready with all (well, almost) the facts and figures
that has gone into its making. It is almost a blueprint.

Before one goes into the analysis of the promises and their implementability,
it is worthwhile to ask: who is BJP targeting through this? The common man, with
promises of 1.2 crore jobs? It is doubtful as even the political analysts have
not attached too much importance to it.

Or is it the educated middle class who have turned away from it? Probably
partially. But if a party insider is to be believed, BJP hopes that it will
appeal to the young voters the way it did in Bangladesh. India too has plenty of
young voters and it is expected that many of them will vote this time. That is a
fair assumption except that unlike in Bangladesh, the contrast between the two
main political parties is not as high for this to be differentiator. Sheikh
Hasina leveraged it effectively as her principal opponent Begum Khaleda Zia
played the card of divisive fundamentalism which the youth rejected.

But that is a political question: will IT fetch votes? The question here is:
is the vision good enough for achieving the broader goal that it wants to
achieve: India as a more prosperous, powerful nation?

Some BJP insiders claim that the IT vision is a reflection of what LK Advani
wants to be remembered for in the history books. That is if NDA comes to power.

The Promises

Notwithstanding whether the targeted beneficiary of BJPs campaignthe
common man, especially in rural Indiawould even be aware of such a thing called
the IT Vision, the BJP has left no stones unturned to make it sound as populist
as possible. The title of the document itself, Transforming Bharat, gives you a
fair idea of that.

That is not all. The entire document is sprinkled with a liberal dose of
these populisms. The promises summarize as: har Hindustani ka bank khaata (a
bank account for all Indians), Har BPL parivar ko smart phone (a smart phone for
every family below poverty line), har gaon mein broadband suvidha (broadband
facilities in every village), har school mein Internet shiksha (Internet
education in each school) all of which culminate in one slogan: sabko rozgaar;
shaasan janata ke dwaar (employment for all, governance at the doorstep of
people).

The populism notwithstanding, there is significant level of details
providedsignificant considering it is just a vision document, and not a plan of
implementation. Some of it is revolutionary new thoughts, some of it is old wine
in new bottle, some of it is even an attempt to take credit for what is
well-established and existing. But what is noteworthy is that none of it is an
isolated statement. Almost all promises are accompanied by measurable targets
and a level of detailing we do not often see even in corporate presentations.
Take for example, an overall measure of the success of the IT game plan.
Presently, India ranks 132 in the UNDP Human Development Index. By doing all
these, we want to take India to a position of 50 or above in five years, says
the document.

Pradyut Bora, the national convener of the IT cell in the party, and the lead
author of the document has all the answers at minute levels. It is based on
months of background work that we have vetted with many of the experts in the
industry, including senior professionals, he says, just stopping short of
naming the companies and people.

Take the first promise in the document: the promise of creating 1.2 crore
jobs in rural areas through IT. Not surprisingly, this is something that the
mainstream media has highlighted as the single-most important feature of the
entire set of promises. You have instant calculation that accompanies the
promise: on an average 20 jobs per village, and with 6 lakh villages in India,
you have the big figure. Interestingly, in his presentation while releasing the
document, Advani actually listed all the areas where those jobs would be
created, though that is not part of the vision document itself. While the list
of jobs features everything from agri-business to healthcare, it also includes
rural BPO and rural content creation in the local language. Here is our own
piece of calculation. Even if we assume that one in every 20 jobs would be in
one of these two areas, that is still 6 lakh rural BPO/content jobs!

Some of the promises are populist on the face of it, but there is more to the
point than what is obvious. Take for example the promise of the one crore Rs
10,000 laptops for students, which comes as a sub-point within the e-education
agenda item. Just as you start dismissing with skepticismas we have heard it
many times beforehere comes the clarification. The laptops would have a Core 2
Duo equivalent processor and at least 2 GB RAM. But isnt it like promising the
moon?

This will happen through local manufacturing and not just local assembling,
says Bora with confidence. We believe it is possible if you locally manufacture
most of the components, he adds. It is understood that the game plan is to
purchase the entire 10 million PCs through a single order and local
manufacturing coming as a condition for the bidder to qualify for the order.
Says an IT industry honcho, If Intel does not come, AMD will.

This is one example of the overall objective behind a promise being several
times bigger than the promise itself.

If you thought Core 2 Duo and 2 GB is too much into specifics, here is more.
The promise of the party in broadband is not just making it available widely but
redefining broadband from 256 Kbps to 2 Mbps with 1:1 contention ratio.
Recalling its fairly successful road development projects while NDA was in
power, the IT vision promises the digital versions of the same: National Digital
Highway Development Project for the backbone and Pradhanmantri Gram Sadak Yojana
to build the last mile. The telecom promise also includes unlimited VoIP. We
will implement Trais recommendation of unrestricted VoIP, said Bora. Calling
it the 4th wave, he said it would have similar impact on telecom usage as
introduction of PCOs, mobile phones and CDMA technology had had in the past.

The other popular, a long-promised IT goals that the IT manifesto mentions
are an unequivocal support for open sourcethat is something that it shares with
the communistsspecific steps to promote local language computing. This is where
the promises become somewhat of a jingoism. All software sold in India would
have to be compatible with all 22 official languages, it claims.

Some of the other explicit promises that it makes are:

• Creation of a unique identity system for all citizens, which was first
  mooted by the NDA government, announced by UPA towards the fag-end of its term
  and even allocated budget for that in this years vote on account.
• Bank accounts for all Indians. Advani, in his presentation, hinted that it
  could also be through mobile banking.
• Using IT to increase the number of skilled workers from 8% to 20% in five
  years.
• Multipurpose National Identity Card with Citizen Identification Number (CIN)
  to replace all other identification systems in three years. Advani linked its
  criticality with the Bangladeshi migration problem, BJPs long-time political
  issue.
• Establishment of a nation-wide telemedicine network and connecting all the
  primary health centers to this network.
• Digitization of records of all ministries.
• Computerization of all court-related records and arbitration records with
  easy searchability and computerization of judgments so as to speed up the
  judiciary process.
• Introduction of a 1-800 toll free number for citizens to contact their
  MPs.
• Government of India to standardize on open source and open standards. An
  IT standard body will be spun off BIS.
• Incentives for domestic hardware industry to promote local products.
• Establishment of a National Mission for promotion of IT in Indian
  languages.
• Establishment of a Digital Security Bureau, an independent agency
  responsible for cyber counter-terrorism and ensuring cyber security for
  national assets.
• Creation of special Internet zones to promote Internet hosting in India.

The Gaps

The IT vision of BJP is fairly comprehensive on most aspects. Yet there are
a few important aspects that are completely missing from the document.

The most important miss is the complete absence of any reference to Indias
IT/BPO services exports industrythe industry whose direct and indirect impact
on Indian economy has been acknowledged by one and all. The industry has
contributed in restoring national pride, creating millions of jobs, and
generating export revenues from the country. When it is going through multiple
challenges of global slowdown, the UPA finance minister P Chidambarams plan to
ignore demands of extending the STPI scheme apart from some incentives to get
into next level of growth, it is surprising that BJP chose not to address it,
despite putting a photograph of Infosys chief mentor Narayana Murthy in one of
the first few pages of the document.

The other significant miss is its silence on R&D and IP creation in India.
This is something which the Indian IT community has been talking about for a
long time but the activities on ground have not kept pace with the talks, which
often makes critics call us a nation of cyber coolies. It is surprising that the
only areas that it found worth some work within its Digital Sovereignty agenda
is creating a standard setting body. It is difficult to believe that India can
have digital sovereignty without creating significant IP within the country. The
party which was so critical of UPA for selling out to the US when the latter
signed the Nuclear Deal with the US, strangely does not think it is important to
create technology within India. In areas like space and nuclear science, if
India is counted among the leading nations, it is because of that early vision
of Nehru to make India self-reliant on these areas.

Development is IT

The IT vision document is, in reality, a development agenda marketed with IT
flavor, probably, to appeal to the young voters, much the same way as Sheikh
Hasina did in Bangladesh.

Rajivji (Rajiv Gandhi) once said in Kalahandi that if he sent Re 1 to the
people, only 15 paisa reaches them, said Advani while releasing the document.
We will use IT to ensure that the recepient gets the full one rupee, he added,
summarizing the impact that IT would have on the development of under-developed
regions.

Some of the things have already been implemented in BJP-ruled states. Now,
we will do it nationally, said Arun Shourie, senior BJP leader. He said the IT
vision has two objectives: one broad objective of using IT to serve common
people and second is to reorient the Indian IT industry to have domestic focus.
He also hinted at the possibility of a hardware policy, if BJP came to power.

This may well be BJPs stimulus package for driving Indias (and in
particular Indian IT industrys) next phase of growth. But the big question is:
what is the likelihood of its coming to power, with many major allies turning
away from it and as the mainstream media pointed out, in the wake of a growing
rift within the party? And dont forget: this is BJPs IT vision, not NDAs. So,
while development goals such as low cost PC and telecom will not have too many
hurdles in the way to implement, when it comes to issues like open source, 1-800
numbers to contact MPs, or even implementation of a national identity system, it
is bound to see new discussion.

But all that apart, the very fact that IT has been recognized as something
that can win you elections by a large national party, itself is a great boost to
lift the sentiment of the industry in the short run and its level of
participation in nation-building in the long run.

Shyamanuja Das

shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in